Story of the Oddest Couple in the Universe
by Sophie Temrer Rimmer-Artley
Summary: Rimmer/Lister, in diary form. M rated in later chapters.


**AN: This fic is going to be AU, and my first RD fic in the first person, so I hope you like it! Enjoy!**

_This diary is the property of Arnold J. Rimmer, kindly smeg off and stop reading!_

_That means you too, Listy. I know where your smegging guitar is, I can remove the E string and garrotte you if you like..._

Right. Now I've got rid of all those snoopers, I can start my story.

I'd always thought I was destined for greater things, but sadly I have achieved a grand total of one promotion: from Third Technician to Second Technician, and that was only because the previous Second Technician got fired for sleeping with Todhunter's wife. Thornbury, I believe his name was. Anyway, over the years, I have come to realise that, as many people have told me, there are more important things in life than a career.

Friendship. Love. Caring about someone and being cared about in return.

They say you find love in the most unlikely places, and you can't choose who you fall for. I know both those statements to be true, as I can't think of someone more unlikely that I found love in (and, it has to be said, someone I thought I would only choose if the alternative was having my genitals covered in steak mince and dangled into a lion cage).

I bet you can already guess who I'm talking about, can't you?

Yes, it's true. Arnold J. Rimmer is head over heels for none other than curry-guzzling gimboid, slob by royal appointment Dave Lister.

Even as I write this, I remember what it was like back in the old days. Before I died, I mean. We spent every waking moment winding each other up and generally being smeggy to each other. It was pointless, but it made us both feel like the day had been well spent, and in my dreams I came up with more witty, snarky comebacks to use on him, and pictured the look on his face when I said them. In all honesty though, I never was much cop at the whole comebacks lark, and Lister always outquipped me.

Then I died. I was a hologram. An electronic ghost, as I once said to Dave. I physically could not touch anything. It was hell. Pure hell. Countless times I would go to pick something up, or lean on a flat surface or wall, only to find I fell right through. It was pretty disconcerting for the others though, suddenly seeing my upper body appear through the wall, especially if I'd been trying to eavesdrop on their conversation. In many ways, they treated me differently, because I couldn't touch anything. The only one who didn't change his attitude towards me was none other than Lister, because as far as he was concerned, I was still a total smeghead, and my death hadn't altered that. In a strange, yet somehow perfectly understandable way, I was grateful to him for that. The one constant in my life was his behaviour towards me.

That was how it had always been, and that was how it stayed.

Over the time I spent with Lister, Cat and Kryten on Red Dwarf and Starbug respectively, I grew to see them in new lights. Kryten's annoying cleaning habits were really kind of endearing, and Cat's vanity was just his way of dealing with things, although he did tend to trivialise on more than one occasion. Lister's slobbish and lazy behaviour was nowhere near as infuriating as it had been before, and I even began to regard Dave as a friend, although I would never have told him.

Then, as is usually the way with these things, there was that one evening when everything changed...

I was walking past the AR suite on Red Dwarf, after we had recovered it prior to my disturbing experience on Rimmerworld, when I heard noises, and being the nosy git I am, I had to see what was going on. Using my hologrammatic status to my advantage, I switched to soft-light and stuck my head through the wall, and was met with the sight of Lister wearing one of the AR helmets. The name of the game he was playing was up on the screen where Holly usually was.

_Better Than Life._

I almost laughed, but then I heard him speak, and I just about froze in shock.

"Look, I know you're not real, but ya don't understand. You're what I want. Please Rimmer. Just do this for me. It's not really gonna have happened. The real Rimmer won't have a clue. C'mon. I love ya."

I almost made the mistake of calling out to him, but remembered just in time that I was still just a disembodied head sticking out of the wall, and that was something I didn't fancy explaining. So I did what any self-respecting eavesdropper would do: I pulled my head back to the right side of the wall and legged it. I finally reached the sleeping quarters and doubled over, breathless from my escape. I then changed back to hard-light and sat down on the edge of my bunk and tried to process what I had just seen and heard.

If what I guessed Lister had been asking of the AR version of me was right, then I was in a whole heap of smeg, because I had no idea how to respond to finding out that Dave Lister, my supposed arch nemesis, was... attracted to... me.

At first I was cynical, certain that he knew I'd been watching him and was having me on, then realised he'd had his face covered by the helmet, so that was out. I mulled over several different possibilities before finally coming to the conclusion that Dave was only on the Better Than Life game because there he could make me do whatever he wanted.

Of course, that made my imagination run away with itself picturing Lister and me together, and I managed to succeed in giving myself a beyond uncomfortable erection. This made me rather alarmed, and I had to stop those surprising, and dare I say arousing mental images and try to think properly. This was Lister we were talking about here! Dave space-bum Lister! The man who spent most of his day finding new ways to drive me mad! The man who was more tone-deaf than a builder using a pneumatic drill! The man who...

Who just told an artificial version of me that he loved me.

I was beyond confused, and still painfully aroused, and then disaster struck. I heard footsteps, and I dived under the covers, still fully clothed and wearing my boots, and pretended to be asleep.

"Sleeping like a baby." I heard Lister chuckle. "Night Rimsy, ya smegger. Love ya."

I suddenly felt Lister's warm breath on my face, and almost gasped in surprise as I felt him kiss me on the cheek and gently stroke my hair, before I heard him climb into his bunk and begin to snore. I rolled over and pushed the covers off me.

The heap of smeg I was already in had just got deeper...

I will continue more of my story later, I can hear Dave calling me. I'm coming, Dave!

Oh smeg, now look what he's gone and made me do...! Darn it, Listy!

**Well, what do you think? Review please!**


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